Environmental concerns have become a major political issue in almost every region of the world. The citizens are now very sensitive to the quality of life and to the care taken in fauna and flora conservation. Indeed, full-fledged political parties now exist (e.g. the so-called "Green" party) with their main goal being to address the various problems of pollution.
One important aspect of the widespread pollution affecting nature today is the recurrent oil spills in oceans by oil tankers accidentally unloading their cargo following damage/puncturing of their hull. For instance, on Mar. 24, 1989, the oil tanker EXXON VALDEZ, after leaving its normal path on the waterway about the Prince William Bay on the Pacific coast of Alaska (U.S.A.) to clear an iceberg, ran aground on a coral reef, and its hull was damaged whereby oil began to leak. Of the 200,000 tons of oil from the tanker, 40,000 tons managed to escape and to spread on the water, to eventually reach more than one thousand kilometers of coastal land regions. The alaskan wildlife fauna and flora is fragile, partly because of the harsh weather, and therefore the tragic ecological consequences will be long-lasting. The Exxon corporation, owner of the tanker, was able to recover less than 10% of this oil spill, mainly on the water.
A much greater ecological disaster occurred on the coast region of France on Mar. 16, 1978 when the Amoco Cadiz, a liberian vessel, ran aground a few kilometers from the coast and hit rocks which punctured its hull. Up to 230,000 tons of the oil carried by the Amoco Cadiz were spread on the water and over 250 kilometers of French coastal land.
Technically, it is much easier to clean oil spills on the water surface than when it reaches land. Various means have been devised to degrade oil spills in water. For example, the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980: Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 206 USPQ (1980), which held that microorganisms produced by genetic engineering are not excluded from patent protection, allowed patenting of a microorganism capable of degrading oil compounds, notably oil from an oil spill on water. However, it has always been very difficult to extract oil once it has reached a beach or other coastal regions.